Letters to the Editor
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Letters
Bull’s-eye targeted On the picture in “Galactic bull’s-eye” (SN: 9/24/11, p. 10), I am quite puzzled. Do my eyes deceive me, or is there another bull’s-eye galaxy behind the first, located at the 1 o’clock position? How is this possible? Are these strange objects magically clustered along some line pointing towards us? Jeff Brewer, Newton […]
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Letters
Lumpy lunar illusion Are you folks aware of a phenomenon based on the universal expectation that objects are illuminated by light coming from above? Several startling optical illusions are based on this quirk of the mind. For example, the sharp moon map in “Orbiter delivers sharp moon map” (SN: 7/30/11, p. 12) makes the moon […]
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Letters
Lowdown on Earth’s heat “Science Stats” (SN: 8/27/11, p. 4) understates the power Earth radiates into space and mistakenly suggests that Earth radiates more energy from internal sources than it receives from the sun. The total (44 trillion watts) shown in your diagram must represent only the minuscule percentage (about 0.02 percent) from internal energy […]
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Letters
New light on sunshine vitamin Regarding the article “The power of D” (SN: 7/16/11, p. 22), I was very surprised that there was no mention of the positive effects of this vitamin on the debilitating effects of depression. I have lived in northern latitudes between upstate New York and now Vermont since my birth in […]
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Letters
Earthquake rumblings I reviewed this very interesting story (“Seismologists in a rumble over quake clusters,” SN: 5/7/11, p. 5) this morning, and it occurred to me that the connection between all of these very severe earthquakes might possibly be the change in weight distribution throughout the planet, resulting from temperature increases due to climate change […]
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Letters
Prescient sci-fi It took the Science News editor in chief to recognize the most prescient science “fiction” movie of all time, Forbidden Planet (“Science brings real life to the technologies of fiction,” SN: 7/2/11, p. 2). Beyond civilization without instrumentalities, the film also brought us lasers before there were masers, Robby [the Robot] analyzing molecular […]
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Letters
Irrational with money Bruce Bower’s excellent article on “Simple heresy” (SN: 6/4/11, p. 26) showcases the blindness of mainstream economics. Namely, economics is often more like the weather than a game of dice: chaotic — with catastrophes, cycles and all manner of weird behavior. Yet economists continue to use statistical models that work “until they don’t.” So […]
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Letters
Yawn and open your ears I read with interest your article on yawning (“Yawn,” SN: 5/7/11, p. 28). Over the years I have formulated a private theory on at least one of the reasons why we yawn and would like to share my speculations with your readership. My insight essentially began when I noticed that […]
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Letters
Your cosmic questions Regarding the “The vital statistics” in “Cosmic questions, answers pending” (SN: 4/23/11, p. 20), I was puzzled by two values: 13.75 billion years (time since the Big Bang) and 90 billion light-years (diameter of the universe). If light has been streaming away for 13.75 billion years, then shouldn’t the diameter of the […]
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Letters
NASA budget blunder My thanks and admiration to Ron Cowen for writing about NASA’s “culture of deception” in his recent article on the James Webb Space Telescope mission (“Star cents,” SN: 4/9/11, p. 22). If the astronomy community (and Congress) had decided years ago that spending $7 billion or $8 billion on JWST would be […]
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Letters
Nuclear recycling In all I’ve read in the popular press about spent nuclear fuel, including “Natural catastrophe begets nuclear crisis” (SN: 4/9/11, p. 6), all that is written about is on-site storage or burial. Why is reprocessing of the fuel never seriously considered? I understand that the French have done it successfully for years. Are […]
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Letters
Ain’t got the beat Obviously, Bruce Bower hasn’t tried to teach tourists how to dance. “A man oblivious to music’s tempo” (SN: 3/26/11, p. 9), though not common, is not rare. In the last 35-plus years I’ve shown more than 10,000 visitors to New Orleans how to do the Cajun two-step or waltz, and perhaps […]
